Emmaus

Emmaus is a village in the plain country west of Jerusalem. In the UPDV record it appears as a staging point and battleground in the Maccabean revolt — the place where Judas Maccabeus engaged the Seleucid commander Gorgias and routed the king's forces.

A Camp on the Plain

Emmaus sits in level country and is large enough to serve as a base of operations for an army. The Seleucid general Gorgias arrives there with a heavy force: "So they went forth with all their power, and came, and pitched near Emmaus in the plain country" (1Mac 3:40). The march is part of a deliberate movement against the Jewish resistance, and the chosen ground is open and flat — fit for cavalry.

When Judas and his men advance to meet the threat, they stage their own camp in the same vicinity: "So they removed the camp, and pitched on the south side of Emmaus" (1Mac 3:57). The two armies face each other across the plain.

The Attack at Emmaus

The decisive engagement turns on Judas's preemptive move. Gorgias takes a picked detachment by night to fall on the Jewish camp and finds it empty, because Judas has already gone. "And Judas heard of it, and rose up, he and the valiant men, to attack the king's forces that were in Emmaus" (1Mac 4:3). At daybreak Judas appears in the plain with three thousand men, ill-armed but trusting "the covenant of our fathers" (1Mac 4:10), and the king's army is routed. The pursuit reaches as far as Gazara, Idumea, Azotus, and Jamnia, with three thousand of the enemy falling (1Mac 4:15).

Emmaus thus enters the record as the site of one of the signal victories of the revolt — the place where a small force on the south side of the plain overturned a numerically and materially superior army that had encamped there in confidence.